Sunday, 23 August 2009

Home sweet home.

Excuse my lateness, but in case you hadn't realised, we are safely home from Canada. We got home two weeks ago today, and life has been pretty busy, hence my delay. We spent a few days in Suffolk (REUNION IN SUFFOLK!), unpacking and then repacking, before moving into our new flat in Canterbury. The girls came to visit (REUNION IN CANTERBURY!), I registered at my new uni, then Seamus flew to Ireland (REUNION IN IRELAND!) and I went to London to see Kyra (REUNION IN LONDON!) before I flew to Germany (REUNION IN GERMANY!) to see Meike, Hanna and Vanessa, and last night, returned home to Suffolk (RE-REUNION IN SUFFOLK!). I think the reunions are all over now, and I have a couple of weeks to relax and hang out with my family (and new puppy and kitten!) before I move to Canterbury properly and start uni. So, I've really been too busy to miss Canada, or even contemplate missing Canada. It WAS good times, though.

I worked out we were there for 297 days, during which we visited fifteen cities, nine provinces (and two US states), and an awful lot of national and provincial parks. Waterton was so the most beautiful place we went to, although Newfoundland came pretty close, and BC would definitely be the province I'd move to. I liked everywhere we went, minus Lethbridge and Calgary (yes, even Toronto!) and my favourite thing about Canada is the diversity across the country. Diversity in every way...landscapes, climates, ethnicity, language, food, people, attitudes, industry, rates of GST...who needs to travel the world when you can just go to Canada? I will never forget the mountains, or the coastlines, or the people who shared their Canada with us (Erik the tour guide, Moose Travel, our two lots of farm hosts, our two lots of Couchsurfing hosts, the Algonquin crew, and our Waterton friends, especially Sue and Zen, Claudia, Al and Alex, Irina and Mayor Al, who I think about and miss every day). I am so happy to have met these people, seen these sights, done these outdoor activities, and drank all those beers.

I was thinking about making a new blog (our Canterbury adventures?), not that my life is that exciting these days (if it ever was), but social work/social issue-based. There is a lot I've wanted to talk about in terms of current events, my future studies etc, so I'll put a link here if I end up doing that in the next few days. I'm sad to sign out from my blogging career for too long, I'm pretty self-obsessed, so telling the internet world the ins and outs of my daily life has been fun. Until next time...